Greetings to the obgyn.net
community! I am a not-very-academic ultrasonologist with a
practice which includes a
little bit of everything. In the coming months I would
like to share
with all of you some of my memories from the early days of
ultrasound in
hopes that more of you may be encouraged to document your own
early training
and experiences and to solicit help in filling in some of the
"blanks" in
my own recollections. I would like to thank Terry DuBose,
Barbara Nesbitt
and Martin Necas of OBGYN.NET for their interest and support in
this effort.

The Bowman Gray
School of Medicine of Wake Forest University

My ultrasound training began when I
was starting
the second year of a neurology residency at the Bowman Gray
School of Medicine
of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina. I had just
finished a year of general medical internship which was a
requirement for
neurology residents. In the fall of 1974 a large wooden
crate was delivered
to the department of neurology. Its somewhat mysterious
contents were
to change the course of my own medical career drastically.
In the crate
was a prototype ultrasound scanner for evaluation of the carotid
bifurcation,
the work of electrical engineer Jack Reid
and clinician
Merrill
Spencer of
Seattle, Washington. The neurology department at Bowman
Gray, under
the leadership of Dr. James Toole, was a major center for the
evaluation and treatment of stroke
patients. Neurology assistant professor William
M.
McKinney (later credited with coining the term
"neurosonology" for the
application of ultrasound to the evaluation of the brain and
cerebral circulation)
was putting together a multi-disciplinary ultrasound laboratory
(which continues
today under the leadership of Dr. Fred Kremkau). It began
with the
use of a-mode ultrasound
echoencephalography for
evaluation of trauma patients and over the years added Doppler
and imaging
techniques for carotid artery and intracerebral circulation
evaluation (transcranial
Doppler), cardiac evaluation and even obstetrical, general
medical and surgical
ultrasound. By volunteering for an eight month research
project using
the ultrasound equipment in "the crate" I began my journey into
medical ultrasound.

The links below will take you to a
number of pages detailing some of the activities which were
taking place in the 1970's
at Bowman Gray and other medical centers. If you find
errors or have
questions or comments, please e-mail me
at: sounddoc@aol.com